LGBT Symbols - Leather Sub-culture

Leather Sub-culture

Leather culture denotes practices and styles of dress organized around sexual activities and eroticism ("kink"). Wearing leather garments is one way that participants in this culture distinguish themselves from mainstream sexual cultures. Leather culture is most visible in gay communities and most often associated with gay men ("leathermen"), but it is also reflected in various ways in the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and straight worlds. Many people associate leather culture with BDSM (Bondage/Discipline, Dominance/Submission, Sado/Masochism, also called "S & M") practice. For others, wearing black leather clothing is an erotic fashion that expresses heightened masculinity, the appropriation of sexual power, love of motorcycles and independence, engagement in sexual kink, or leather fetishism.

The Leather Pride Flag was designed by Tony DeBlase, who presented the design at the International Mr. Leather event in Chicago, Illinois on 28 May 1989.

The flag is composed of nine horizontal stripes of equal width. From the top and from the bottom, the stripes alternate black and royal blue. The central stripe is white. In the upper left quadrant of the flag is a large red heart. I will leave it to the viewer to interpret the colors and symbols.

—Tony DeBlase

Another name for the leather flag is "Black and Blue with Love".

Read more about this topic:  LGBT Symbols

Famous quotes containing the word leather:

    I was the horse and the rider,
    and the leather I slapped to his rump

    spanked my own behind.
    May Swenson (1919–1995)